BARRY DAVIES PURE COMMENTATING GENIUS

SAM TODD LOOKS BACK AT THE CAREER OF A BROADCASTING LEGEND...

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THE 1986 Argentina-England World Cup quarter-final has recently resembled the Master-Card adverts you may have seen during the late 1990s/early 2000s: Diego Maradona's shirt: auctioned off for £7.1m.

The match ball: subject to a £2m bid. Barry Davies' commentary: Priceless. Davies, who was inducted into the National Football Museum (NFM) Hall of Fame in March, soundtracked many of the beautiful game's most iconic incidents, and one of its most tragic with the Heysel Disaster at the 1985 European Cup final, during a six-decade commentating career.

However, if one fixture epitomised his ability to convey both the emotion of the moment and the exact thoughts of the watching millions in a measured yet excitable way, then perhaps it would be the encounter that took place at the Azteca Stadium almost 40 years ago.

Born on October 24, 1937, Davies' early career, after flirting with dentistry, took him from the British Forces Broadcasting Service to a stint at The Times via BBC Radio's Sports Report before he broke into television with ITV in 1966 - just in time for England's World Cup triumph, which he witnessed as Hugh Johns' understudy.

Upon joining the BBC and making his Match of the Day (MOTD) debut on August 9, 1969, Davies immediately demonstrated the versatility that also saw him cover the Wimbledon tennis championships annually, plus numerous other sports including hockey, figure skating and gymnastics, when he was diverted to Selhurst Park for Manchester United's trip to Crystal Palace.

“I was supposed to do Leeds against Spurs,” he told Football Focus on the day of his NFM induction, “but Kenneth Wolstenholme wasn’t well and then David Coleman lost his voice, so I was brought down (from Elland Road).